Technical Review Guide

Last Updated: 01/08/2019

VMware vSphere Basics
• vCenter, ESXi, vSphere
o What is the difference between vSphere, vCenter and ESXi?
o Why do we only support paid licenses of VMware?
o What is located on the datastore? Describe the files that you can see under the VM folder.
• Virtual Machine files, snapshots
o Which files of the virtual machines you know?
o What is a snapshot and why do we need it?
o How does creating snapshot affect the virtual machine?
o What types of virtual disks are supported and what is the reason behind not-supporting other
types?
• Change Block Tracking
o What is Change Block Tracking and why do we need it?
o What happens with a virtual machine if CBT does not work?
• Thin/thick virtual disks
o Describe the difference between thin and thick disks

Veeam Backup
• Transport Modes
o Name all three transport modes for VMware
o Clarify benefits/negatives of all three modes
o Name the requirements for Direct SAN transport mode
• Backup process
o Describe the backup process from Veeam prospective
o What is the purpose of a snapshot in Backups? From what disk do we read when we do a backup?
o How/when is Guest Processing done during the backup (at what stage is this done or when does this
occur?)
▪ Why do we do the Guest Processing work at the Snapshot Stage? Why not before/after?
• Backup Modes/Retention/Synthetic Process
o Explain how Forever Forward Incremental Works
o Explain how Forward Incremental Works
o Explain how Reverse Incremental Works
o Where do we set these options in the UI?
o How is a Synthetic Full Created?
▪ (BONUS) What we might suspect if we have a FI job, SynFull on Sat, 7 Restore points, but we
see a backup chain with 30+ points of Full + 29 Increments.
• Guest Processing
o What Applications benefit from Application Aware Processing?
o How do we connect to the Guest for Application Aware Processing?
o How does VMware Quiescence differ from Application Aware Processing?
▪ (BONUS) If you have an application that cannot be processed by AAP, but needs to
be Transactionally Consistent, what do we need besides quiescence to perform a backup?
• What methods can we use for scheduling backup jobs?
o What is Backup Job Chaining?

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Veeam Replication
• Replication job
o What are the benefits/negatives of using replication jobs?
o (BONUS) What servers are Re-IP supported?
o How different restore points are stored on the VM_replica? Why is it possible to do so?
o How does the retention process work in the replication jobs?
o What is Replica metadata? Where it is stored (should be)?
o What transport modes can be used in Replication Job? What is the limitation for the Target Proxy in
VMware?
o Describe all the options we have if we are unable to transfer the Full VM across the network
• Failover/failback
o What is failover?
o What to do after the failover (options to finalize)? And why do we need them?
o Describe what happens with original virtual machine and Replica VM if Replica VM gets powered on
manually
• Digests calculation
o What is Digests Calculation? When this process happens?
• How do you understand Replica from Backups?

Veeam Restore
• Basic Restore Methods (Entire VM Restore, VM Virtual Disks Restore, VM Files Restore)
o Where the Veeam Agents are started during the restore process?
o What is summary.xml and at which step does our agent parse it?
o Could the original VM be overwritten if we select "Restore to a different location"? If yes, under
which circumstances?
o During the restore process, why does Veeam edit the .vmx file from the backup prior to uploading it
on the datastore ?
o Why do we create a snapshot during the restore?
o Under which circumstances could the original disk be overwritten during VM HDD Restore process?
o Which servers could be used as destination for VM Files Restore?
• vPower NFS
o What is vPower NFS? How vPower NFS is used when performing Instant Recovery?
o What is the difference between the default configuration and "Redirect write cache" option in
Instant Recovery (IR)?
o What methods can be used to finalize Instant Recovery?
o Which migration methods does Quick Migration offer?
• File-Level restores (Other OS FLR, Windows FLR)
o What is the helper appliance? How is it used during the Other-OS restore process?
o What are the possible ways of recovering files/folders when doing Other-OS FLR?
o Where the disks are mounted during Windows FLR?
o (BONUS) How to recover the needed files with Instant Recovery if FLR fails?

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 Hyper-V Basics
• What is Hyper-V hierarchy you are aware of? (Host, Cluster, SCVMM) 
o What difference does it make in VBR? 
o What is WMI used for?  
• Walkthrough of a backup process   
o Backup process for the Hyper-V 2008R2/2012.  
o Backup Process for the Hyper-V 2012R2. Where shadow copies are created?  
o Backup Process for the Hyper-V 2016-2019What is the major difference for Hyper-V 2016?)  
• Change Block Tracking    
o Describe the main concept of the CBT in Hyper-V 2012R2 and earlier
o Describe the main concept of the CBT in Hyper-V 2016-2019 
o What happens with a backup job and virtual machines if CBT does not work?  
• Off-host proxy  
o What is the difference between on-host and off-host proxy?  
o What are the benefits using off-host proxy?  
o What are essential requirements for the off-host proxy?  
• What types of disks are not supported? Why?  

Backup Copy  
• Copy Intervals and Backup Window 
o What is a copy interval? (if we have a source job running hourly, I.e. producing 24 points a day, why
is a Backup Copy job producing one point per day? A customer set their interval start time to 00:00,
why is the job copying data at 20:30?) 
o What kinds of Copy Interval can we set? 
o Can we make the Backup Copy job transfer data at a certain time? 
• Restore point selection 
o If the Backup Copy job says, “there are no up to date restore points”, but we know there are restore
points that haven’t been copied to the target Repository, what can be the cause? 
o Why else Backup Copy might not select a restore point for copying? 
• Retention 
o Simple retention – which backup method is used by default? 
o GFS Synthetic retention – how does it work? If we set up Weekly point creation for Sunday, will we
see a Weekly .VBK on Sunday? 
o GFS Active retention – what's the difference? What are the benefits/negatives?
• Compact Full 
o Why do we need it? How does it work? 
o What are the requirements for the Compact Full operation? 
o Why can this option be disabled in settings? 
• What is Health Check? How does it work? 

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Veeam Tapes  
• Describe supported hardware/configurations 
• Tape Hardware Integration Questions 
o How does Veeam communicate with tape hardware?
o Does Veeam have any special integration with specific tape hardware vendors? 
o How does Veeam detect Cleaning Tapes and WORM tapes? 
o File to Tape versus Backup to tape 
o What is the benefit of Backup to Tape? (why not just file to tape all the time?) 
▪ (BONUS) Should we be using F2T to backup Reverse Incremental increments? Why
or why not? 
• Virtual Synthetic Full 
o What is the purpose of the Virtual Synthetic Full? 
o What does the schedule represent?
o What Source Job Configuration requires a Virtual Full? 
o How do we avoid performing Virtual Fulls? 
o Common Job Configuration Questions 
o What are the minimum Restore Point Requirements for each of the following source jobs?
▪ Forever Forward Incremental
▪ Forward Incremental
▪ Backup Copy Job
▪ Reverse Incremental
o How do we enable GFS Retention for Veeam? 
• GFS Specific Questions 
o Describe what a GFS Job will do by default on the day it run (assuming no changing of the job
configuration) 
o For Daily Media Sets, if a backup is produced on the same day as a GFS day, which media set will the
full be written to? (e.g., today is both a Daily and Weekly day) 
• Mediaset Questions 
o What configuration option should we choose if the customer wants to always append data to
tapes? 
o What configuration option should we choose if the customer wants to only have a specific backup
set written to tape and no other backups? 
o Under what circumstances will Veeam create a new Mediaset when it is not supposed to?
o (BONUS) A customer has a GFS Media Pool, and their GFS Job is asking for a new tape to be added
for the Monthly Mediaset; there are several expired tapes in the GFS Media Pool. Why is Veeam not
overwriting these tapes? 

Veeam SureBackup/SureReplica  
• What is the reason to use vPowerNFS in SureBackup job?  
• Walkthrough the SureBackup process 
o Describe the SureBackup process from the beginning until the end.
o Why do we need a SureBackup/SureReplica?  
o What are backup verification tests for?  

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Veeam Enterprise Manager  
• Describe in general what is the purpose of Enterprise Manager for a Veeam Environment 
• Explain the Self-Service Portal  
o Why a customer may need it?
o What are the requirements for the Self-Service Portal?
• Describe the purpose of Roles for Enterprise Manager 

Veeam DB  
• How do we create a clean database? Why do we need it? 
• Is it possible to connect a VBR installation to a database that was created with a higher version of VBR? With
a lower version? 
• What are available modes when we restore a configuration backup? What is the difference? 
• What do we do if we can’t connect VBR to an existing DB because it is in use by another VBR server? 
• How do we determine which VBR version created the database? 
• What is a mandatory step before you make any changes in the database? 

Veeam Storage Integration 

• Main concept of the Storage Integration 
o What is Storage Integration? 
o When we could use it? (VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix) 
o What are Primary, Secondary Arrays?  
• Storage Snapshots and Veeam 
o What types of jobs with Storage Integration exist? Describe each of them.
• Restore from SS (main concept and common issues, limitations)  
o How does the restore from storage snapshot differ from traditional restore? 
o How do we start a restore from the snapshot? 
• How do we check in the UI that Storage Snapshot enabled/used? Where do we check Storages?  

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 Veeam Licensing  
• By means of what Veeam Backup and Replication is licensed?
• How a customer could get purchased license?
• How to check what license is installed? 
• How to assign license units to other servers/hosts? 
• How long perpetual sockets license can be used?  

Case Handling  
• Which of the following products are supported?  
▪ Veeam Backup & Replication;  
▪ Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager;  
▪ Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager RESTful API; 
▪ Veeam Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure; 
▪ Veeam Backup PowerShell snap-in; 
o What would be your actions if you see that customer has a pirated copy of Veeam installed?  
o Where to direct the customer if you received a feature request/vulnerability report?  
o What you need to do if customer requests a remote session? What if you are unavailable at the
requested time?  
o What to do if customer could not upload the log files on the Customer Portal?
o What to do if you are planning to go on vacation/sick leave/day off?  
• Phone Calls Handling
o Describe the procedure of the phone shift  
o What are support levels? Where is the support time for each support level?
o What if you received a call from a French/Chinese/Turkish speaking customer?  
• Cases Handling
o What is SLA? How a support level affects the SLA?  
o Describe all the Severity levels that you know 
o Describe the case shift workflow 
o Why customer would need Case Administrator role? What is License Administrator role?  
o What are you actions if customer requested to re-open the case?  
• Referrals
o How to process Severity 1 case? What is the SLA for Severity 1 case with
Production/Basic/Evaluation Support?   
o What kind of case you would consider as a deployment request?   
o When would you consider escalating case to T2? And when horizontal escalation will be the best
option?

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